Before they meet the girl with the amazing feet, six students see her project, and something tells each one of them: This is it.
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It is September and Marquette University engineering students are combing through lists of ideas. They must pick one for their senior project. There are marks to consider. Certain projects offer a better chance of success.
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But they are seniors. In a year, they are going to find out if there is as much satisfaction in earning a paycheck as there was in playing with Legos when they were kids.
Each of the engineers reads the project list. Each arrives at the same entry. And the idea of grades melts away.
The girl's project is unlike the others. Most seem destined to follow a familiar storyline: You build something, give it to an industry sponsor, cross the stage at graduation. What happens to the device you created is anybody's guess.
This time the engineers will know if they have succeeded, and it won't be the grade that tells them. An 11-year-old girl named Kailyn Pieper will get to eat without having to bring her mouth right down to the table, without having to dip her face into the plate. She won't have to maneuver applesauce to her mouth with a spoon held between her toes. She'll be able to do something so fundamental, so second nature that most never give it a thought.
The project - and it's more of a plea from the little girl's stepmother - is to build a device that will help her eat.
Kailyn was born in April 2000, seven weeks premature and diagnosed with one of those rare congenital disorders with a complicated name: arthrogryposis multiplex congenita.
What it means is that joints do not form properly. And the malformed joints mean parts of the body cannot move as they should; in Kailyn's case, her arms, which hang stiffly in front of her. Early on, her legs were afflicted too, stuck in an awkward position, jutting over the stomach to her ears.
The causes of the condition aren't known, but may involve problems with the spinal cord or central nervous system. One theory holds that too little room in the uterus may play a role. Doctors thought Kailyn might have an extra set of chromosomes. They told her mother, Katie Paape, they did not expect her to survive.
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